Snellville Centennial

As we celebrate 100 years of Snellville, the Snellville Spirit will be offering information celebrating the city’s historic past. Look for more information on special events at the Snellville Centennial Celebration webpage on the city’s website at snellville.org/snellville-centennial.

After World War II, the residents of Snellville pursued employment other than agriculture. Many men traveled daily to the Atlanta area to work in the automobile and other factories. This was the beginning of the transition of Snellville from a farming to a bedroom community.

In the late 1950s two local brothers, Jimmy and Wayne Mason, began building homes in the Snellville area. With the availability of attractive, affordable brick homes, Snellville grew more than 200 percent. Shopping centers, hospitals, schools and churches appeared to meet the needs of the growing population. The Masons were very active in recruiting doctors, dentists and grocery chains to stimulate the growth.

The first schools in the Snellville area were one-room schoolhouses, most of which were privately operated by headmasters for profit. Prior to 1900, 15-20 such schools were recorded in southern Gwinnett. The first public school opened around 1905, was sparsely equipped, and served until the larger Snellville Consolidated School opened in 1923, drawing students from four nearby smaller schools. The building housed students in first through 11th and later through 12th grade. It was a large granite structure, built from a local quarry, facing 78 Highway near the former Krystal Restaurant.

Under longtime Principal W.C. (Bill) Britt, the school provided more than just education and offered such community services as a canning plant, medical vaccinations, cultural events, agricultural extension, a sawmill and machine shop.

With the growth in population, the granite school added more classrooms. This addition was later used as City Hall. Many more schools were built in the area. South Gwinnett High School, Snellville Middle School, and W.C. Britt Elementary were three of the first.

Like most of rural Georgia, Snellville was under served medically until the early 1970s. Five different doctors practiced here at different times from 1885-1930. Most were bi-vocational, working as farmers or merchants, to supplement their incomes. The city was without physicians from then until 1956, when the extended community built a doctor’s office and recruited a physician; two physicians practiced from the facility before it was sold.

Dr. Edward Bowen came here in 1971 as a general practitioner and immediately began recruiting medical specialists, and spearheading a campaign to build a hospital in the city. By the end of the 1970s, the city had attracted young specialists in cardiology, gynecology, pediatrics, urology, ENT, surgery, and other fields of specialization. Dentists Hugh and Anne Mazzawi arrived in 1969 and helped to recruit some of these new professionals. Gwinnett Community Hospital opened in 1980 with 103 beds. Today, the expanded hospital is known as Piedmont Eastside and offers stateof-the-art healthcare.

In 2000, then Mayor Brett Harrell initiated conversation regarding the building of a new city complex. It required negotiation for a land swap between Snellville United Methodist Church and the city of Snellville. The initial plans were to transform an abandoned supermarket into a new City Hall, and the now former City Hall into a segment of the church campus. After much negotiation and construction, on March 12, 2006 the city dedicated a newly constructed building that is Snellville City Hall.

For many years Snellville had the following slogan: Everybody’s Somebody In Snellville. In recent years the slogan was changed to the following: Snellville, Where Everybody’s Proud to be Somebody. Snellville is a city that honors its past and looks forward to the future.

Written by Jim Cofer, Snellville Historical Society.

CORRECTION: An article appearing in the last edition incorrectly identified the Sawyer House as the Snell House.

Where Everybody’s Proud to be Somebody